i'm a Contract Killer: Murderous, Explosive, Deviant

By Andrew Segal

This is the second book in the Aberrations Series, a collection of ten new, short stories to tease and tickle.

How would you feel if you came face to face with a contract killer? I did, and it formed the basis for my title story .

But then, most, if not all of my yarns have a foundation in something I'v

• Language: English
• Publisher: Happy London Press
• Release date: Mar 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781912951161

Andrew Segal

The inspiration for this story originated when I was invited to a black-tie event, given by a senior American politician. Attended by some fabulously wealthy people, among whom a sprinkling of billionaires, the party was hosted in the heart of London's Mayfair. My attention was drawn by a strikingly handsome young man, with immaculate black hair, who, ignoring protocol, wore a white tuxedo and flourished a long thin cheroot between aristocratic fingers. Exuding charm, he approached the elegant dames, whether alone or accompanied by husbands. I contrived to get as close to him as possible to overhear what they found so fascinating about this individual. The gentleman was a Gigolo. I needed to know more. But when I later made enquiries of my various hosts, none of them could ever recall having invited the man.

Book preview

Introduction

This is the second book in the Aberrations Series and includes, as in Book 1, a collection of ten new, short stories to tease and tickle.

How would you feel if you came face to face with a contract killer? I did, and it formed the basis for my title story.

But then, most, if not all of my yarns have a foundation in something I’ve heard, read or personally experienced.

I’ve kept a diary, for example, but have not had as macabre an experience as the old man in my tale, Dear Diary.

One might wonder, for example, whether, given the chance, the leopard might ever change its spots? Read my take on it and find out for yourself. This story was based on an actual event involving my wife, when she was just six years old. Her mother was so appalled by what happened, she refused to ever speak about it, or hear about it for the rest of her life.

I am not, and have never been a Gigolo, but decided to have our hero from Book 1 meet his comeuppance in Book 2 when he meets a Courtesan, who tumbles his well-kept secret. It’s all there for you to appreciate.

In this second Book in the series, I’ve also looked at taxidermy, car crime and conditions under which an innocent journalist might be tortured and imprisoned in Vietnam? All based on personal experience, or else events I’ve read about in the press which struck me as being worthy of a view to be expressed in a short story.

These are just a few tasters of a collection of tales I hope you’ll enjoy reading as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

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Andrew Segal

Chapter One

I’M A CONTRACT KILLER

I like people. I love people. That’s why I kill them. Or have done up till now.

You see, I couldn’t leave it to some amateur who might botch it, because that would be terrible. I don’t botch it. I get it right first time. Every time. That way nobody suffers - I suppose.

I was nine years old when I first became aware of something called a contract killer. A long time ago.

It was 1959, and Elvis had explained the sadness of a relationship breakup three years earlier in his rendition of Heartbreak Hotel, a piece whose marketability officials at his record company had singularly failed to recognise until the King had put his foot down and insisted they release it. You could die of loneliness, he sang. He was right about the record. They were wrong. It achieved a million sales plus. The man was a visionary.

In that same year, 1959, Elvis had also pleaded for, ‘One Night,’ with his lover. Another big hit. Eventually I would want one night with someone, even one hour with someone. Only I never got it. Not in all my life, and I’m sixty-eight now.

I never knew my father, he might have been any one of dozens. My mother was a prostitute, operating near docklands, servicing as many as twenty or thirty johns every evening. Around 10.00 pm each night if business was slack, she’d go into the Golden Lion pub off the Commercial Road for a Guinness and a couple of packets of 20 Players Weights. A toff called Mrs Dickinson and her son Jerry ran the place. I never got to know how someone with her background found herself running a dump in that area, but she gave the place a touch of class. Even had a stockbroker with an account as one of her regulars. Anyway, she and Jerry treated mum with respect. She smoked up to 40 a day. Mrs Dickinson told mum, ‘Those cigarettes will be the death of you my dear.’ But she was wrong. Sure, mum had cancer of the throat by the time she died, but it wasn’t the fags that killed her, she had her throat obligingly cut by one of the johns. Did mum a favour really. Could have been months of agony otherwise, they said. Never found who did it, the police. Hardly bothered. Mum being what she was. Attitudes are different today.

I was fostered out after that. Farmed out more like. Friends of Mrs Dickinson’s. The Mayburys, out in Guildford. Toffs, like her. Big house. Servants and all that. Dogs, horses, hunting. County people. Passed the port clockwise to the left. She meant well, Mrs Dickinson, but they weren’t all that interested, the Mayburys. Social conscience I suppose. Said they voted Labour. Don’t make me laugh. Their own two kids, twins, a boy and a girl, blond, pink skinned, two years older than I was, looked down their noses from the time I arrived there. Wouldn’t have anything to do with me. At least I got my own bedroom. Better than hiding in mum’s filthy kitchen while she was fucked hour after hour, night after night. More than wealthy enough, the couple, they got rid of me by sending me to a boarding school in Hampshire, where for the first couple of years I was picked on, until I learned to speak with their clipped accent.

Got called nigger for the first time. Hadn’t experienced racism when I was living with mum. Salt of the earth, most of the East Enders I knew from the pub. Never realised I was mixed race. Didn’t know what it meant. Loads of Caribbeans worked the docks in those days. So, I’m what you’d call mulatto. Light brown skin with black wavy hair. Long hooked nose. Middle Eastern link maybe? Not what you’d call beautiful. Women shy away. Never had sex in my life. And decided I’d never pay for it, not after seeing mum’s life.

Also, I’m tall. And I’m strong. Even at nine I could handle myself. It’d take two or three of the bigger ones to lay me out when I first got to that school, but I got bigger quickly, even on the school’s crap food. Anything was better than mum’s starvation rations. I was six foot by the time I was thirteen. I’m six eight now. I found out I was bright, Heaven help. Got six A levels. All starred As. Two Languages, French and Spanish, Pure Maths, Advanced Maths, Eng Lit and Lang. I found it easy, studying. A sponge for soaking up info. The school made noises about university, but I just wanted out.

I’d made no friends there in all that time. Funny thing is, I wasn’t angry. No-one was calling me names anymore, and I’d gained some respect, whether through fists or academic achievement, I couldn’t say. Bit of both, I guess.

So I decided to sign up for the army. A four year stint. I said goodbye to the Mayburys and thanked them for their generosity; but there was no way I’d ever go back there. I suspect they were relieved when I finally left. They never really knew what to make of me. I was now educated, articulate, sounded just like them, but wasn’t one of them. An oddball. Their kids, now adults, just smirked. Not so nice, the twins, sad to say.

In the army I learned how to kill people. Both armed and unarmed combat, which would eventually come in useful. I was in Dhofar, 1968 to 1972. The secret war took place between 1971 to 1972. All very complicated. I was in the thick of it. There was some camaraderie, I suppose, but I kept to myself as far as I could. My middle-class accent set me apart, but nobody tried to give me a hard time. Ironically it was the army that first showed me what it was to behave with humanity. I saw plenty of action, witnessed defenceless populations of misguided young men fighting with religious fanaticism, helpless women and children, gunned down, bombed out, starved to death. I cried for the first time in my life.

There were promises of a commission if I stayed. But the army wasn’t for me, and I didn’t sign on for a second stint.

I’d saved from my army pay and got myself a bedsit in Brixton while deciding what next to do with my life. Locals were okay. My type really. I got to like them, was on nodding terms with lots of them, but close to no-one. I felt at home there. Of all things, I missed mum. But I was friendless.

McCartney understood the essence of loneliness, ‘Eleanor Rigby, who died alone and was buried alone. After all, there was no-one.

But Lennon got the picture best of all; he was the Walrus, an oddity, a solitary man. Evocative, abstruse verbal psychedelic meanderings. He was me. I am him. A misfit.

And yes, I found I loved them. People. I loved them all. The things we discover about ourselves. I am a caring man as killers go.

So, back to our contract killer. BBC TV, 1959, he was being interviewed by the Beeb, a bit of a scoop. Not often you find one in my profession to chat to let alone one willing to be interviewed on the telly. Still, there’ve been a few since that first one.

Needless to say, he was largely in shadow. But the impression gained from his silhouette, was of a tall rangy individual, small bald head, prominent jaw, large hands. He was a soft voiced psychopath, although in 1959 that term wasn’t as widely understood as it is today.

The interviewer talked about the methods the man used, although again, the whole thing was somewhat sanitised for viewers of that era. Still, he informed us, strangulation, knifings, handguns, long range rifles.

Poison? He was asked. No. Never. He needed to deliver the blow himself and see the results. Poison didn’t work for him. So, the interviewer wanted to know, why did he do what he did. Was it the money? Yes, he said partly that. But also, because he was simply good at it. Good at killing. Then he was asked, how did he feel when he got home, having just murdered someone. His response, delivered in that soft tone of his, was that he felt a sense of peace and tranquillity. At nine years of age I didn’t understand. Later I came to.

Anyway, I needed to work, couldn’t live on my army savings indefinitely, so I did the obvious thing and applied to a security company. With my background and credentials, I got taken on immediately. I was posted to Annabel’s in Berkeley Square, Mark Birley’s upmarket nightclub, named after his wife, Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart. It was the place for the great and the good, and they liked me there, the clients, the management and the owner. My presence, my height, my education, my accent. Lots of beautiful women, whom, it was made clear to me I was not to proposition in any way. I didn’t need warning: the women still gave me short shrift. Was I black or was I Arab? I confused them, the ladies. I was and am still a loner, and it shows.

Around this time I had the one and only relationship of a sort. A girl from New Delhi. Her name was Danika, which, she told me means morning star. Her father was a steel multi-millionaire, and a widower who brought his daughter with him to the club for company from time to time. She was tall, slender as willow with black shoulder length hair, eyes large as Bambi’s and an incredible grace of movement in the saris she always wore. I tried to ignore her, but my gaze was repeatedly drawn in her direction, particularly as I noticed the inquisitive way she had of looking at me, usually from the corner of an eye when her head was turned away from me.

Late one evening Danika’s father approached me. Middle height with receding dark hair and a yellow gold ring supporting a very large red stone on his left hand, he shimmered power. ‘You drive young man?’

‘Yes sir,’ I responded, wondering where this was going.

‘What is your name? You’re new here aren’t you?’

Clearly I hadn’t made much of an impression with this gentleman, ‘I’m Pierce Montgomery, sir. I’ve been here a few months.’

‘Montgomery, you say.’ He studied my face as one might survey a prize racehorse for sale. He looked interested, impressed even. ‘English aristocracy,’ he announced. It had never occurred to me before. Just what and who were mum’s antecedents, I wondered? I knew nothing of my grandparents. I realised even my Christian name carried a certain cachet. Poor mum, what in God’s name had led her into the life she lived.

‘My daughter is tired, Montgomery. I’m staying on to play a little backgammon with friends. My car is outside the club, the burgundy Bentley by the kerb. The keys,’ he said, tossing me a Bentley fob sporting the familiar winged motif. ‘Drive safely. I’ll expect you back in under an hour,’ he said before kissing his daughter on the cheek.

At that time of night the roads were pretty clear and we got to her place in about fifteen minutes; we hardly spoke. The car drove smooth as silk. Wouldn’t have minded one myself, if I could ever have afforded that sort of money. They had